Journalists, Careful With Your Words – Editors, Careful With Your Journalists!
And there it was, same mistake by 2 different people – and, already
You
know that 2 wrongs don’t make 1 right!
Those mistakes are in the very title of that story, and I
repeat:
“Philippine
Food Security Seen Depending On Maximizing Research”
Wrong word used, on 2 counts. One, there is no such thing as “minimizing research.”
Two, even assuming that there is “maximizing research,” the report has nothing
to do with it! 1 fault, 2 faulters.
Before I say more, let me introduce myself.
BusinessWorld does not know me from
Adam, so let me establish my credentials. I will mention just 3.
One, you can say
English is not a foreign language to me, an Ilocano. I am a graduate of UP
Los Baños, BS Agriculture with major in Ag Edu, 1965, with a Civil Service
eligibility at Professional Level. I fell in love with the (American) English
language when I was in high school yet more than 60 years ago. With all those
classics, poems, westerns, and Perry
Mason, the library was my intellectual home; the Reader’s Digest was my Bible. From them, I got theory and
knowledge. My English became American.
Two, I began my
unusual career as an Editor In Chief in 1975, Dinosaur Age (big typewriters). I
founded and edited the 3 major publications of the Forest Research Institute,
FORI: monthly newsletter Canopy,
quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and
quarterly popular magazine Habitat. My
English became scientific.
Three, I began my even
more unusual career as Editor In Chief after FORI. Self-taught in the Digital Age, I became Editor In Chief of
the Philippine Journal of Crop Science,
PJCS, in 2003, based at the campus of UP Los Baños. I was a one-man band
Editor, Secretary and Layout Artist (Desktop Publisher) for the PJCS for the
issues 2001 to 2008, and my total performance was international, so that the journal was included in the elite list (popularly
called “ISI”) within 3 years, from being late 3 years. The ISI list includes
only those whose scientific publications are of international quality.
Long story short, we go back to Mr Ochave’s story,
“Philippine Food Security Seen Depending On Maximizing Research.” The problem
there is “maximizing research” – I have never come across such a term or
reality!
I
blame both the Author and Editor.
I know it was written in a hurry, as most news items are –
as you can see in the breathless construction of sentences and sequences of
words. Please, when you write about science, about research and development,
R&D, especially in agriculture, forget about “maximizing R&D.”
Actually, the BusinessWorld report was on maximizing the “knowledge
economy” in agriculture and maximizing the “intellectual capital” spent towards
food security.
That’s
capital!@517
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